Running News Daily

Starla Garcia is looking forward to being part of the US Olympic marathon trials this weekend

Starla Garcia ran in circles during a part of her life.

It could have killed her.

After battling with herself as well as anorexia and osteopenia, a weakening of the bones, she’s back. Now, she runs when she wants instead of when she thinks she has to. And she wants to run, especially Saturday, Feb. 29, when she will be one of more than 500 runners competing at the Olympic Marathon Trials in Atlanta.

She qualified by coming in under the 2-hour, 45-minute mark at the Houston Marathon, where she now lives. Garcia has no false beliefs that she will be among the top three runners to qualify for the games; she still has goals.

“A lot of people are like ‘you can make it to the Olympics,’ that’s so nice and supportive,” she said. “But imagine the talent. I already had a ticket to go and watch it in real time and was so pumped up. My goal is to be as close as to what I did in Houston.

“I knew I was on pace, sitting behind the pacer. Maybe two or three of us went for it near the end and I was one of those girls. When you stress your body, your mind just shuts off and you stop telling yourself that you’re tired and you start trusting your body to do what it’s supposed to do.”

The former PSJA North and University of Houston cross country runner fell into a pattern in high school that female runners can fall prey to. She would run, have a little better race time, lose a half pound of pound of body weight and run with the results being even a little faster.

“I would be told great job with my time and friends and others would tell me I was looking good and it was just a pattern I couldn’t stop,” Garcia said. “I started restricting foods and it wasn’t a good time.”

A self-described “Type A, overachieving kid,” Garcia said her junior year in high school she had several AP classes and had put a lot of pressure on herself, all while still trying to run at a high level, a level that brought her a regional championship in cross country her senior year and a state appearance in the 3,200.

It was what she described as the “golden days of PSJA North Cross Country. It was so fun to be there,” she said.

“I used to run because I thought I had to. Now I run because I love to.”